Confessions of a Wino

The business card for Lucy’s carries the tagline “share in the experience”.  Oh dear, looks like I’m washing up again…

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Red sparkler?  Are you having a laugh?

When I poured this Shiraz from the Lynn family in Coonawarra, it held all the promise of a Heston Blumenthal raspberry sorbet.  Alive fizzy and erm…raspberry coloured.

But it disappointed badly. A heavy wine with some cherry and banana but slightly stale like old cornflakes.

Champagne is about sparkling clarity.  The sort of brightness that streams in through your bedroom window on a Sunday morning in August, when a little bit of bedroom gymnastics is on the cards.

This was dull as dishwater and wouldn’t have even made a Chippendale stand to attention.  However, in fairness, I think it is simply past its best.  My mate JJ who graciously brought it over (and hopefully doesn’t mind me writing so ungraciously about it) has probably stored it in an airing cupboard for a few years which, one assumes, might not have helped.

I’ll try another (younger) bottle one day.

As I stare at the bottle and write this, I have no idea how much the wine costs, nor how well reputed it is.  I have not read the label on the back and I have no record where I got it from (presumably a present then).

It is always interesting to attempt to not be swayed by a label, but given a Château Lafite 1787 and an Echo Falls Merlot in each other’s bottles would I notice?  I might rate the sickly lifestyle brand, with almost certainly the British & Commonwealth record for slowest and most annoying website ever, the best wine.  Maybe I am a Label Mabel.  A brand junkie.  Or just a marketing and packaging enthusiast?

My prejudices say this wine is cheap.  The colour is dark and much too purple.  The taste is jammy.  Specifically blackcurrant with a wipe of strawberry.  There is also something tangy and sharp.  But actually I quite like it.  At 13.5% not as blockbusting super-jammo as I feared.  Yes, quite tasty.  I think it would compare favourably to a £7.50 Chilean Cabernet.

So how much is it then?  Off to Google.  Tesco.com have it for £6.17 a bottle (in cases of 6).  That sounds fair.  Bit better than a cheapy, not in the same class as a 10 quider but drinkable with the right food – in this case Marmite on white toast is the perfect match.

When my flat was constructed in 2006, at the peak of the city centre building boom in Manchester, decent workmen were hard to find, or so it seems.  One employee of venerable but notorious subcontractors, Boddgit and Scarper, found a new use for 4 inch nails:  Namely to use them not only to station a roughly fitted cupboard shelf but also to make an elegant, if unnecessary, belly button piercing in the hot water pipe that feeds the kitchen tap.

It is a miracle that this did not result in a visible leak until late summer of 2008.  The nail finally rusted away and now most of the hall floor, skirting and cupboard wall has been temporarily removed, whilst a dehumidifier is valiantly trying to soak up the excess “moisture” like a digital sponge.

I often find that Aussie Shirai (I assume that is the plural of Shiraz) are a bit drying in the mouth, so I don’t drink anywhere near the amount of down under wines that I should.  I am not about to launch a flood of reviews but let’s try to redress the balance one drip at a time eh?  A drop of Eden Valley “The Saviours” 2003 had been sitting in my rack for a while.  I needed something to take my mind off things.

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When I turned 18 we did a sort of lad’s rite of passage thing.  Some guys did sickly things like inhaling a whole cigar.  Others did amateur self harm (but not on Iggy Pop’s scale).

The idea I most admired was the guy who ate a whole pot of jam.  This doesn’t sound very rock and roll does it?!  But have you ever tried it?  The first spoonful is delicious but by the time you are half way through the jar, it is getting sickly to the point of making you gip.  In that sense it’s a bit like drinking an Aussie Shiraz.

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